From the very beginning of op.127, it is striking to see how Beethoven, by then completely deaf, felt so powerful an urge for the most carnal sound possible, composed of double- or even quadruple-stopped chords. The mixture of open strings, of positions permitting optimal sonorities, with their resonant, juicy sixths, proclaims the desiring body of the composer, who lived to the full through a delight in imagined sound, despite the absence and prohibition in this world of any joy of a more incarnate nature. The ensuing Adagio presents a total contrast – if you listen to the first twenty seconds, which add contemplation and uncertainty to a feeling of expectation, you might wonder what era we are in. Is this a later reflection on Das Rheingold, with the same E flat in the bass (which in Wagner’s case spans almost half an hour)? A contemporary work? The Quatuor Ysaÿe chooses the option of astonishment, and the musicians stretch out the sensation of something strange, subtly sustaining it by suspending certainties through articulations that prolong salutary doubt. 42 BEETHOVEN • THE COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS
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